MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

phd_travel Good watchable indy movie in the vein of "Little Miss Sunshine". Liked the ensemble of quirky characters with their mental and other problems. Alan Alda is quite good as the elderly man with Diminished Capacity with a valuable baseball card to sell. His mental problems aren't overdone. His nephew trying to help is played by the quite well cast Matthew Broderick though he is a bit puffy looking. Virginia Madsen looks quite pretty with her lovely face. She is a bit broad in the mid section. Bobby Cannavale is quite good in his intense over the top role. It's not one to watch more than once like Sunshine or Sideways, but it's worth one watch.

Brigid O Sullivan (wisewebwoman) I enjoy all the actors in this, so when I first saw this in the remainder bin I grabbed it. I hadn't heard of this release at all so looked forward to breaking the cellophane.The actors - Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen and Alan Alda - struggle mightily with a rather awkward wandering script and a movie that can't seem to make up its mind in which direction and what genre it is embracing. Bathos, pathos, slapstick, romance and too many pathetic fight scenes get thrown into the mix and take from a slender story that could have been wonderful. Broderick plays Cooper, an editor for a Chicago newspaper who is called by his mother to sort out an uncle (Alan Alda) who is displaying bizarre symptoms of dementia. Thing is Broderick also has suffered a brain injury (another fight scene) and is having serious mental issues himself.This could have been fully explored in a blind helping the blind scenario but unfortunately it isn't. Instead we now get a road movie with a very valuable baseball card as the impetus for the flight. There were some very interesting underlying themes which were never fully explored and all dealing with Alda, playing Rollie who has a wonderful fish-writing obsession with a typewriter sitting on the end of the dock. I also thought the relationship between Cooper and his mother undeveloped, she seemed a very interesting avant-garde figure.The clichés were many down to the second to last scene when all characters in the stadium engage in an unbelievable fight/chase/fight/chase scene that seems interminable not to mind unbelievable.And then the seen-it-all-before-Joe dinner in the garden with all cast members happily chowing down. Eye-roll.A shame to waste all that great talent on this unsatisfying script. 2 out of 10.

sddavis63 Essentially you have here a "B" list cast of actors (Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen and Alan Alda) - none megastars, but all solid actors - who, as you would expect, put on decent enough performances. The problem with the movie is a story that misses its potential. I acknowledge that I haven't read the book. Maybe this worked better on paper, but on screen this was lacking.Broderick played Cooper, an editor for a Chicago newspaper who suffers a head injury, and then is called away himself to help care for his uncle (Alan Alda) who's in the early stages of dementia. Madsen is some type of old flame for Cooper with whom he reconnects in his hometown. All three were fine in their roles but this movie had basically two directions in which it could have gone, did a little bit of both and, ultimately, because it had no focus on either, was a disappointment.This could have been successful as a light-hearted comedy; a humorous look at dealing with the problems of dementia. Alda captured that well; he was believable as a dementia victim, and there were things like his fish-writing obsession that could have made this touchingly funny, but those moments were few and far between. Or, this could have gone the route of emotional drama, as we watch Alda's character of Rollie (and those around him) deal with his decline, but again those moments were few and far between. There was a moment when I thought the movie had made a choice - the very powerful scene when Rollie is missing and Cooper finds him in anguish in the bathroom at the card show; lost, confused and embarrassed at what's happened. But that moment also gets lost. Instead of that, the story focuses for some reason on the old baseball card - a 1909 Cubs card that Rollie's grandfather gave him as a keepsake and that he now wants to sell. Even that could have been touching enough, but the card ends up being used primarily as a prop for staging slapstick humour, especially the ridiculous "fight" scene at the end of the movie.Also burdened with unnecessary characters (especially Donny, but even Madsen's Charlotte to an extent) this was really a disappointment. 3/10

wmjaho Maybe Diminished Capacity isn't "all that and a bag of chips," as a friend of mine is fond of saying. But I'll tell you what, it's pretty funny. I think I heard more laughing than anything I've seen at Sundance since Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine. That bodes well for the box office prospects of this film.Alan Alda gives a terrific performance as Rollie Zerb, a small-town Missouri old-timer with Alzheimer's, who lives with his sister (and some hilarious but unidentified guy named Wendell in a trailer by the house). They are visited by Cooper (Matthew Broderick), who arrives at his mother's request to help talk Uncle Rollie into a nursing home. Cooper has mental problems of his own, due to a recent concussion. While back in town, he runs into Charlotte (Virginia Madsen), his high school sweetheart who is recently divorced from the town mayor. And somehow Rollie, Cooper, Charlotte and her son wind up heading to Chicago, where they are going to try to sell Uncle Rollie's rare baseball card of Frank Schulte, from the 1908 Chicago Cubs (the last Cubbies team to win the World Series!).Broderick is solid, in his awkward, understated way. Madsen is the straight woman. But Alan Alda makes the movie as Uncle Rollie, and dominates the screen in almost every scene. And yes, if you squint you'll see shades of Hawkeye Pierce, but his Rollie character is a complete departure from anything he has done in the past, and probably his best comedic performance since MASH.The script is very well-written, if a bit awkward at parts, and under the direction of veteran actor Terry Kinney, the action moves along briskly. There is probably more tension than there needs to be, which doesn't really fit. But when you're not wincing, you're generally laughing. There are some hilarious lines, and a plenty of feel-good vibe. Everyone will like this movie.Sundance Moment: Broderick was much better on stage than I would have expected. He was there with his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, whose movie Smart People had premiered at Sundance the night before. Alan Alda was charming as well. Bobby Canavale was in two movies playing at Sundance this year, the other being The Merry Gentleman.